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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Back to the basics of intelligentwomenonly origins — eliminating the negative self-talk habit, with habit the key word.
• Women and girls are the primary addicted group — addicted to self put downs.
• The NaSTy habit results in low self-esteem, high stress, decreased productivity.
• Breaking the habit is difficult and results in higher self-esteem, lower stress, increased productivity.
• Many techniques are available to dump NST altogether, or decrease it's insistence markedly.

For more about the basics of negative self-talk, check out July 25, 2010 post:

E.g.
"There I go again, dumping on myself the whole morning." "What an idiot. I know better but I just keep on repeating the stupid behavior."
"I give up. I just don't have what it takes to get rid of the negative self-talk."

Just as when you are dieting and eat an ice cream cone, it doesn't mean mean you're "bad", you slipped, you failed, you're a jerk, you have no willpower. It means you're dieting and you ate an ice cream cone and you can find a way to accommodate to that choice within your eating plans. Same with negative self-talk. Sliding into a habitual NST pattern doesn't mean anything more than, "Oh, I'm doing it again. I'll keep it limited, unexpanded."

WELCOME TO IWO!

It's the beginning of the third year of intelligentwomenonly.com I've started off with some retrospective posts as a reminder to me and you that this blog started out focused on understanding and eliminating negative self-talk. Not surprising since my current book project is Handbook #l for Intelligent Women: Break the Negative Self-Talk Habit.Strong beliefs underlie intelligentwomenonly.com posts:• Research based advice/suggestions/content contain more accurate facts and greater value than pop psychology.• Intelligent girls and women are more likely than intelligent boys and men to limit themselves because of their self-talk.• Negative self-talk is a bad habit, not a neurosis or psychosis. Unfortunately, it's normal in a majority of girls and women.

•The negative self-talk habit has to be eliminated before realistic (or positive thinking) can be learned and maintained.• Positive self-talk cannot create a positive reality even if the negative self-talk habit is broken.• Self-help approaches can work for changing thinking, feeling, and behavioral habits.In the next nine months of 2012, I would love to be able to tell you that the book will be published this year or next. In the meantime I've become intrigued with new brain research about thinking and emotions, particularly applicable and useful for and to women. I'll post no more about gender differences, unless they're wildly interesting, and more about intelligent women's psychology, thinking, feelings, and out front actions. I've added a new red subject box, Writers and Writing, targeted specifically for writers, of course!

I'm still looking for some controversy, disagreement, new information from readers. I'm open to your thoughts about what you'd like to hear more about — or less about!Please send me your comments, suggestions, questions, criticisms — all of you intelligent women out there!